Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-02-05
PLANTERS OF RICE.
GEORGIA FARMERS WHO SAY THE
TIMES ARE DULL NOWADAYS.
Contrast Between the Old Days and the
New-Nachinrry Gradually Finding
Place-Respers in Place OF Sickles.
some General Information.

Some General Information.
Special Corrcsponden,e.l
SAVANNAH, Jan. 3l.-Rice planters are
great GROWERS. They are always complain
ing of something. If it isn't the weather 1t
is the labor. and if it isn't the labor its the
price of rice The truth is they have pretty
good reason 10 complain. They are not as
prosperous us they were when they owned
their labor. Once they were regarded as the
nabobs of all this section of the country.
They had their fine houses and drove their
fine horses. They went north or to Europe
in the summer. Life had many pleasures
and few troubles for them. They are cult
waited gentlemen now, rs a rule, but their
pocketbooks are not as fat as they were thirty
years ago.
But why the rice planting interest il not as
prosperous now as it used to he, Is hard to eN-
plain Perhaps, after all, 1t Is more prosper
Gus than the rice planters would have the
world believe, Those who make n living by
tlling the soil are inclined to look on the
gloomy side Of things.
The methods Of the cultivation of rice are
gradually changing. The old planters re-
member very well when they had neither
plow nor harrow, and when the planting was
done with the hoe and the hand. The soil
was turned up and the trenches We're made
with a hoe The rice was drilled in the
trenches by hand. OF course the planters had
to have plenty Of help. About all of them
owned their labor and, hence, they did not
l,t much thair n make
them In those days they considered that
about ten bands were necessary TO make an
acre of rice The hoe was kept moving
pretty steadily until the crop needed no
further attention When the rice ripened
the sickle was used 70 harvest it. II can be
readily seen how slow the process was,
and vet the planters were coutented,
and the negroes were apparently happy.
hands are required to an acre. The
mule plow, harrow and drill have largely
superseded the negro and the hoe. The planter
now talks about the number Of pluws he is
running, instead Of the ~ .r.ber OF hoes. His
fields are prepared 1uic'sly, and the rice is
put into the ground byr machine. She hoe
is still useful. however, in cutting the grass
out OF the growing Iice. The water does
vi liidl lft lltlus, WHICH
almost always below the water courses, are
flooded at s..ted periods during the growing
season.
How long il wa5 before the planter would
permit a machine to cut their rice! "Oh,
no" they said, iii will never do to let a reap
ing machine enter our rice fields, the rice is
50 lightly attached to the stalk that more
than half Of il will lie lost" Their fears
/ .l-. ~
is gradually becoming forgotten instru-
mcnt in rice culture. During the past sea
son there were planters who even used the
self binding reapers II any one had sug-
gcsted such thing ten years ago he would
have been regarded by rice planters as fit for
a lunatic asylum
What a remarkable change has taken place
i'll the market value of the rice lands. When
they We're worked by slave labor they were
assessed all the way from 500 to 500 an
acre Now the hest Of them do not command
more than S3n. They are not Us productive
now US they were when first placed under cul-
tivation. but they are still very rich. They
lie along the rivers and smaller streams ami
are comparatively worthless for anything but
rice Under slave labor they yielded from
fifty to sixty bushels an acre and under free
labor they yield from thirty TO forty. There
Is no doubt that the cultivation under slave
labor was In every respect superior, but it is
probable that if fertilizers We're used more
freely the lands would recover their original
fertility.
The negroes on the rice plantations are
queer lot. They SEQ little of civilization and
occupy a much lower place in the scale Of in
telligence than the cotton plantation negroes
Thos~ not familiar with them find il eN-
tremely difficult TO understand them. The
malaria of the flooded rice fields does not af-
feet them iEjurioUsly. 1t appears to agree
with them AZ well as il does with the alliga-
tors What shftless, lazy creatures they
are! They don't care much whether they
work or not The rivers and creeks afford
them an abundance of fish and oysters, and
doubtless they are not often without rice.
They are given tasks just as in slave times
but they cannot be made to do their work
well II complaint is found with their work
they will hunt for planters who will let them
do pretty much as they please. What pay do
they get! Well, not a great deal About
fifty cents day, except at harvest time
when they get a little more.
There r. one thing connected with rice in
which there hk been no advancement in half
a century, and that Is the pounding of it.
The same comparatively crude methods which
We're employed by the mills when they were
first established, TO change the rough rice 20
clean rice, are employed by them now. The
inventive faculty of the present day has left
this field entirely alone
"Of course the rice planters are all protec-
tionists, they believe they couldn't live with
out protective duty on rice. At present,
however, they are not bothered by rice from
abroad. Competition to the Georgia and
South Carolina states comes from Louisiana,
where a lower grade of rice is produced
Notwithstanding the complaints Of the plant
ers and the low price of rice lands, it is no
ticeablc that plantations which have not been
worked since the war are Icing taken up and
placed i'll condition for cultivation
L VI